Why naked greed didn't sell

The US-based business and finance magazine 'Portfolio' reported its own death this week.

I barely knew the publication but the news still saddened me. For journalists the closure of any news outlet - unless it's a hated competitor - hurts a little, chiefly because it reduces future job opportunities.

But I was warming to 'Portfolio', it seemed less reverential than most of the other US business publications I glance at.

As one reader commented in the goodbye blog: "Portfolio did a great job of making business sexy and exciting."

That was probably its mistake. Every once in a while, at the various financial publications I've worked at, somebody would declare 'we've got to make finance sexy'. I don't think anyone ever achieved that lofty aim but at one newspaper I was slaving at we did manage to publish a soft-focus nude photograph of a woman in a story that might've been about insurance - wasn't my decision. The story was referred to a media watchdog.

The urge to glam up business stories usually ends badly - typically in dross such as 'New Zealand's sexiest businesspeople revealed'.

My conclusion is that readers prefer business and money stories to be conservatively well-dressed - particularly so in the post credit crunch world.

Another Porftolio mourner put it like this: "... just as PORTFOLIO was finding its feet the zeitgeist turned - and we no longer worship wealthy business titans as gods of our culture, we nail them to crosses and drag them through our streets. Sorry, and thanks for trying to do something different. Bad timing."

Still, the magazine's demise provides a good opportunity to re-read the now-classic Michael Lewis story  that "defined what Portfolio was about", appropriately titled 'The End'.


David Chaplin

 

 

Photo: Michael Douglas pictured in the 1987 classic big business greed film, Oliver Stone's Wall Street